Страница:
her. I gave the one girl some of the men's clothes to wear and told them
both to run for the hills, in the opposite direction of the Sister, and not
to look back. I didn't have to tell them twice. Then I sat down on a stool
outside the barn.
"Sure enough, in a while the Sister came back. She saw me sitting
there, hanging my head, pretending to be crying. She thought the other woman
was still inside, with the men. She said, 'It's time those foolish bastards
in there were done with you and your friend. His Excellency wants a report,
and he wants it now--he's ready to move.' "
Verna came up out of her chair. "You heard her say that?"
"Yes."
"Then what?" General Meiffert asked.
"Then the Sister made for the side door into the barn. When she stormed
past me, I rose up behind her and cut her throat with one of the men's
knives."
General Meiffert leaned toward Rikka. "You cut her throat? You didn't
use your Agiel?"
Rikka gave him a look that suggested she thought he hadn't been paying
attention. "Like the Prelate said, an Agiel doesn't work very well on those
the dream walker controls. So I used a knife. Dream walker or not, cutting
her throat worked just fine."
Rikka lifted the head before Verna again. One of the reports stuck to
the bottom of it as it swung by the hair. "I sliced the knife through her
throat and around her neck. She was thrashing about quite a bit, so I had a
good hold on her as she died. All of a sudden, there was an instant when the
whole world went black--and I mean black, black as the Keeper's heart. It
was as if the underworld had suddenly taken us all."
Verna looked away from the head of a Sister she had known for a very
long time and had always believed was devoted to the Creator, to the light
of life. She had been devoted, instead, to death.
"The Keeper came to claim one of his own," Verna explained in a quiet
voice.
"Well," Rikka said, rather sarcastically, Verna thought, "I didn't
think that when a Sister of the Light died such a thing happened. I told you
it was a Sister of the Dark."
Verna nodded. "So you did."
General Meiffert gave the Mord-Sith a hurried clap on the back of the
shoulder. "Thanks, Rikka. I'd better spread the word. If Jagang is starting
to move, it won't be many days before he's here. We need to be sure the
passes are ready when his force finally gets here."
"The passes will hold," Verna said. She let out a silent sigh. "At
least for a while."
The Order had to come across the mountains if they were to conquer
D'Hara. There were few ways across those formidable mountains.
Verna and the Sisters had shielded and sealed those passes as well as
it was possible to seal them. They had used magic to bring down walls of
rock in places, making the narrow roads impassable. In other places, they
had used their power to cleave away roads cut into the steep sides of
mountains, leaving no way through, except to clamber over rubble. To prevent
that, and in other places, the men had worked all winter constructing stone
walls across the passes. Atop those walls were fortifications from which
they could rain down death on the narrow passes below. Additionally, in
every one of those places, the Sisters had set snares of magic so deadly
that coming through would be a bloody ordeal that would only get worse, and
that was before they encountered the walls lined with defenders.
Jagang had Sisters of the Dark to try to undo the barriers of both
magic and stone, but Verna was more powerful, in the Additive anyway, than
any of them. Besides that, she had joined her power with other Sisters in
order to invest in those barriers magic that she knew would prove
formidable.
Still, Jagang would come. Nothing Verna, her Sisters, and the D'Haran
army could do would ultimately be able to withstand the numbers Jagang would
throw at them. If he had to command his men to march through passes filled a
hundred feet deep with their fallen comrades, he would not flinch from doing
so. Nor would it matter to him if the corpses were a thousand feet deep.
"I'll be back a little later, Verna," the general said. "We'll need to
get the officers and some of the Sisters together and make sure everything
is ready."
"Yes, of course," Verna said.
Both General Meiffert and Rikka started to leave.
"Rikka," Verna called. She gestured down at the desk. "Take the dear
departed Sister with you, would you please?"
Rikka sighed, which nearly spilled her bosom out of the dress. She made
a long-suffering face before snatching up the head and vanishing out of the
tent behind the general.
Verna sat down and put her head in her hands. It was going to start all
over again. It had been a long and peaceful, if bitterly cold, winter.
Jagang had made his winter encampment on the other side of the mountains,
far enough away that, with the snow and cold, it was difficult to launch
effective raids against his troops. Just as it had the summer before, the
summer Warren had died, now that the weather was favorable, the Order would
begin to move. It was starting all over again. The killing, the terror, the
fighting, running, hunger, exhaustion.
But what choice was there, other than to be killed. In many ways, life
had come to seem worse than death.
Verna abruptly remembered, then, about the journey book. She worked it
out of the pocket in her belt and pulled the lamp closer, needing the
comfort as well as the light. She wondered where Richard and Kahlan were, if
they were safe, and she thought, too, about Zedd and Adie all alone guarding
the Wizard's Keep. Unlike everyone else, at least Zedd and Adie were safe
and at peace where they were--for the time being, anyway. Sooner or later,
D'Hara would fall and then Jagang would return to Aydindril.
Verna tossed the small black book on the desk, smoothed her dress
beneath her legs, and scooted her chair closer. She ran her fingers over the
familiar leather cover on an object of magic that was over three thousand
years old. The journey books had been invested with magic by those
mysterious wizards who so long ago had built the Palace of the Prophets. A
journey book was twinned, and as such, they were priceless; what was written
in one appeared at the same time in its twin. In that way, the Sisters could
communicate over vast distances and know important information as it
happened, rather than weeks or even months later.
Ann, the real Prelate, had the twin to Verna's.
Verna, herself, had been sent by Ann on a journey of nearly twenty
years to find Richard. Ann had known all along where Richard had been. It
was for that reason that Verna could understand Kahlan's rage at how Ann had
seemed to twist her and Richard's life. But Verna had come to understand
that the Prelate had sent her on what was actually a mission of vital
importance, one that had brought change to the world, but also brought hope
for the future.
Verna opened the journey book, holding it a little sideways to see the
words in the light.
Verna, Ann wrote, / believe I have discovered where the prophet is
hiding.
Verna sat back in surprise. After the palace had been destroyed,
Nathan, the prophet, had escaped their control and had since been roaming
free, a profound danger.
For the last couple of years, the rest of the Sisters of the Light had
believed that the Prelate and the prophet were dead. Ann, when she'd left
the Palace of the Prophets with Nathan on an important mission, had feigned
their deaths and named Verna Prelate to succeed her. Very few people other
than Verna, Zedd, Richard, and Kahlan knew the truth. During that mission,
however, Nathan had managed to get his collar off and escape Ann's control.
There was no telling what catastrophe that man could cause.
Verna leaned over the journey book again.
/ should have Nathan within days, now. I can hardly believe that after
all this time, I nearly have my hands on that man. I will let you know soon.
How are you, Verna? How are you feeling? How are the Sisters and how go
matters with the army? Write when you can. I will be checking my journey
book nightly. I miss you terribly.
Verna sat back again. That was all there was. But it was enough. The
very notion of Ann finally capturing Nathan made Verna's head swim with
relief.
Even that momentous news, though, failed to do much to lift her mood.
Jagang was about to launch his attack on D'Hara and Ann was about to finally
have Nathan under control, but Richard was somewhere off to the south,
beyond their control. Ann had worked for five hundred years to shape events
so that Richard could lead them in the battle for the future of mankind, and
now, on the eve of what could very well prove to be that final battle, he
was not there with them.
Verna drew the stylus out of the journey book's spine and leaned over
to write Ann a report.
My dearest Ann, I'm afraid that things here are about to become very
unpleasant.
The siege of the passes into D'Hara is about to begin.
The sprawling corridors of the People's Palace, seat of power in
D'Hara, were filled with the whisper of footsteps on stone. Ann pushed
herself back a little on the white marble bench where she sat stuffed
between three women on one side and an older couple on the other, all
gossiping about what people were wearing as they strolled the grand halls,
or what other people did while they were here, or what they most wanted to
see. Ann supposed that such gossip was harmless enough and probably meant to
take people's minds off the worries of the war. Still, it was hard to
believe that at such a late hour people would rather be out gossiping than
in a warm bed asleep.
Ann kept her head down and pretended to be pawing through her travel
bag while at the same time keeping a wary eye on the soldiers passing not
too far away as they patrolled. She didn't know if her caution was
necessary, but she would rather not find out too late that it was.
"Come from far?" the closest woman beside her asked.
Ann looked up, realizing that the woman had spoken to her. "Well, yes,
I guess it has been a bit of a journey."
Ann put her nose back in her bag and rummaged in earnest, hoping to be
left alone.
The woman, middle-aged with her curls of brown hair just starting to
carry a bit of gray, smiled. "I'm not all that far from home, myself, but I
do so like to spend a night at the palace, now and then, just to lift my
spirits."
Ann glanced around at the polished marble floors, the glossy red stone
columns below arches, decorated with carved vines, that supported the upper
balconies. She gazed up at the skylights that allowed the light to flood in
the place during the day, and peered off at the grand statues that stood on
pedestals around a fountain with life-sized stone horses galloping forever
through a shimmering spray of water.
"Yes, I see what you mean," Ann murmured.
The place didn't lift her spirits. In fact, the place made her as
nervous as a cat in a doghouse with the door closed. She could feel that her
power was frighteningly diminished in this place.
The People's Palace was more than any mere palace. It was a city all
joined together and under countless roofs atop a huge plateau. Tens of
thousands of people lived in the magnificent structure, and thousands more
visited it daily. There were different levels to the palace itself, some
where people had shops and sold goods, others where officials worked, some
that were living quarters. Many sections were off limits to those who
visited.
Sprawled around the base of the plateau were informal markets where
people gathered to buy, sell, and trade goods. On the climb all the way up
through the interior of the plateau to reach the palace itself, Ann had
passed many permanent shops. The palace was a center of trade, drawing
people from all over D'Hara.
More than that, though, it was the ancestral home of the House of Rahl.
As such, it was grand for arcane reasons beyond the awareness or even
understanding of most of the people who called it home or visited it. The
People's Palace was a spell--not a place spelled, as had been the Palace of
the Prophets where Ann had spent most of her life. The place itself was the
spell.
The entire palace had been built to a careful and precise design: that
of a spell drawn on the face of the ground. The outer fortified walls
contained the actual spell form and the major congregations of rooms formed
significant hubs, while the halls and corridors themselves were the drawn
lines--the essence of the spell itself, the power.
Like a spell being drawn in the dirt with the point of a stick, the
halls would have had to have been built in the sequence required by the
specific magic the spell was intended to invoke. It would have been
enormously expensive to build it in that manner, ignoring the typical
requirements of construction and accepted methods of the trade of building,
but only by doing so would the spell work, and work it did.
The spell was specific. It was a place of safety for any Rahl. It was
meant to give a Rahl more power in the place, and to leach power away from
anyone else who entered. Ann had never been in a place where she felt such a
waning of her Han, the essence of life and the gift within. She doubted that
in this place her Han would for long be vital enough to light a candle.
Ann's jaw dropped in astonishment as another element of the spell
abruptly occurred to her. She looked out at the halls--part of the lines of
the spell--filled with people.
Spells drawn with blood were always more effective and powerful. But
when the blood soaked into the ground, decomposed, and dissipated, the power
of the spell would often fade as well. But this spell, the drawn lines of
the spell itself--the corridors--were filled with the vital living blood of
all the people moving through them. Ann was struck dumb with awe at such a
brilliant concept.
"So, you're renting a room, then."
Ann had forgotten the woman beside her, still staring at her, still
holding the smile on her painted lips. Ann forced herself to close her
mouth.
"Well. . ." Ann finally admitted, "I haven't actually made arrangements
yet as to where I will sleep."
The woman's smile persisted, but it looked as if it was taking more and
more effort all the time. "You can't curl up on a bench, you know. The
guards won't allow it. You have to rent a room, or be put out at night."
Ann understood, then, what the woman was driving at. To these people,
most dressed in their finest clothes for their visit to the palace, Ann must
look like a beggar in their midst. After all the gossip about what people
were wearing, this woman must have been disconcerted to find herself beside
Ann.
"I have the price of a room," Ann assured her. "I just haven't found
where they are, yet, that's all. After such a long journey, I meant to go
there right away and get myself cleaned up, but I just needed to rest my
weary feet for a bit, first. Could you tell me where to find the rooms to
rent?"
The smile looked a little easier. "I'm off to my own room and I could
take you. It isn't far."
"That would be kind of you," Ann said as she rose now that she saw the
guards moving off down the corridor.
The woman stood, bidding her two benchmates a good night.
If Ann was tired, it was only from being caught up in the afternoon
devotion to the Lord Rahl. A bell in an open square had tolled, and everyone
had moved to gather there and bow down. Ann had noticed then that no one
missed the devotion. Guards moved among the crowd watching people gather.
She felt like a mouse being watched by hawks so she joined with the other
people moving toward the square.
She had spent nearly two hours on her knees, on a hard clay tile floor,
bowed down with her forehead touching the ground like everyone else,
repeating the devotion in concert with all the other somber voices.
Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In
your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are
humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.
Twice a day, those in the palace were expected to go to the devotion.
Ann didn't know how people endured such torture.
Then she remembered the bond between the Lord Rahl and his people that
prevented the dream walker from entering their minds, and she knew how they
could endure it. She, herself, had briefly been a prisoner of Emperor
Jagang. He murdered a Sister right before her eyes, just to make a point.
In the face of brutality and torture, she guessed that she knew how
people endured a mere devotion.
For her, though, such a spoken devotion to the Lord Rahl, to Richard,
was hardly necessary. She had been devoted to him for nearly five hundred
years before he had even been born.
Prophecy said that Richard was their only chance to avoid catastrophe.
Ann peered carefully around the halls. Now she just needed the prophet
himself.
"This way," the woman said, tugging at Ann's sleeve.
The woman gestured for Ann to follow her down a hallway to the right.
Ann pulled her shawl forward, covering the pack she carried, and hugged her
travel bag closer as she followed along the wide corridor. She wondered how
many people sitting on benches and low marble walls around fountains were
gossiping about her.
The floor had a dizzying pattern of dark brown, rust, and pale
tan-colored stone running across the hall in zigzag lines meant to look
three-dimensional. Ann had seen such traditional patterns before, down in
the Old World, but none of this grand scale. It was a work of art, and it
was but the floor. Everything about the palace was exquisite.
Shops were set back under a mezzanine to each side. Some of them looked
to sell items travelers might want. There was a variety of small food and
drink stands, everything from hot meat pies, to sweets, to ale, to warm
milk. Some places sold nightclothes. Others sold hair ribbons. Even at this
late hour, some of the shops were still open and doing brisk business. In a
place such as this, there would be people who worked at night and would have
need of such shops. The places that offered to do up a woman's hair, or
paint her face, or promised to do wonders with her fingernails, were all
closed until morning. Ann doubted they could pull off wonders with her.
The woman cleared her throat as they strolled down the broad corridor,
gazing at the shops to each side. "And where have you traveled from?"
"Oh, far to the south. Very far." Ann took note of the woman's focused
attention as she leaned in a bit. "My sister lives here," Ann said, giving
the woman something more to chew on. "I'm here to visit my sister. She
advises Lord Rahl on important matters."
The woman's eyebrows lifted. "Really! An advisor to Lord Rahl himself.
What an honor for your family."
"Yes," Ann drawled. "We're all proud of her."
"What does she advise him on?"
"Advise him on? Oh, well, matters of war."
The woman's mouth fell open. "A woman? Advising Lord Rahl on warfare?"
"Oh yes," Ann insisted. She leaned over and whispered, "She's a
sorceress. Sees into the future, you know. Why, she wrote me a letter and
told me she saw me coming to the palace for a visit. Isn't that amazing?"
The woman frowned a bit. "Well, that does seem rather remarkable, since
here you are and all."
"Yes, and she told me that I'd meet a helpful woman."
The woman's smile returned, it again looked forced. "She sounds to be
quite talented."
"Oh, you have no idea," Ann insisted. "She is so specific in her
forecasts about the future."
"Really? Had she anything else to say about your visit, then? Anything
specific?"
"Oh yes indeed. Why, do you know that she told me I would meet a man
when I came here?"
The woman's gaze flicked around the halls. "There are a lot of men
here. That hardly seems very specific. Surely, she must have said more than
that... I mean, if she is so talented, and an advisor to Lord Rahl and all."
Ann put a finger to her lip, frowning in feigned effort at
recollection. "Why, yes, she did, now that you mention it. Let's see if I
can remember ..." Ann laid a hand on the woman's arm in a familiar manner.
"She tells me about my future all the time. My sister is always telling me
so many things about my future in her letters that I sometimes feel as if
I'm having trouble catching up with my own life! I sometimes have trouble
remembering it all."
"Oh do try," the woman said, eager for the gossip. "This is so
fascinating."
Ann returned the finger to her lower lip as she gazed at the ceiling,
pretending to be engaged in deep thought, and noticed for the first time
that the ceiling was painted like the sky, with clouds and all. The effect
was quite clever.
"Well," Ann finally said when she was sure she had the woman's full
attention, "my sister said that the man I would meet was old." She returned
the hand to the woman's arm. "But very distinguished. Not old and decrepit,
but tall--very tall--with a full head of white hair that comes all the way
down to his broad shoulders. She said that he would be clean-shaven, and
that he would be ruggedly handsome, with penetrating dark azure eyes."
"Dark azure eyes ... my, my," the woman tittered, "but he does sound
handsome."
"And she said that when he looks at a woman with those hawklike eyes of
his, their knees want to buckle."
"That is precise," the woman said, her face getting flushed. "Too bad
she didn't know this handsome fellow's name."
"Oh, but she did. What kind of advisor to the Lord Rahl would she be if
she wasn't talented enough to know such things."
"She told his name, too? She can really do such tellings of the
future?"
"Oh my yes," Ann assured her.
She strolled along for a time, watching people making their way up and
down the hall, stopping at some of the shops that were still open, or
sitting on benches, gossiping.
"And?" the woman asked. "What is the name your sister foretold? The
name of this tall distinguished gentleman."
Ann frowned up at the ceiling again. "It was N something. Nigel or
Norris, or something. No, wait--that wasn't it." Ann snapped her finger and
thumb. "The name she said was Nathan."
"Nathan," the woman repeated, looking almost as if she had been ready
to pluck the name off Ann's tongue if she didn't spit it out. "Nathan."
"Yes, that's it. Nathan. Do you know anyone here at the palace by that
name? Nathan? A tall fellow, older, with long white hair, broad shoulders,
azure eyes?"
The woman peered up at the ceiling in thought. This time it was Ann
leaning in, waiting for word, watching intently for any reaction.
A hand seized Ann's dress at her shoulder and brought her to an abrupt
halt. Ann and the woman turned.
Behind them stood a very tall woman, with a very long blond braid, with
very blue eyes, wearing a very dark scowl and an outfit of very red leather.
The woman beside Ann went as pale as vanilla pudding. Her mouth fell
open. Ann forced her own mouth to stay shut.
"We've been expecting you," the woman in red leather said.
Behind her, back up the hallway a short distance, spread out to block
the hall, stood a dozen perfectly huge men in perfect leather armor carrying
perfectly polished swords, knives, and lances.
"Why, I think you must have me mistaken for--"
"I don't make mistakes."
Ann wasn't nearly as tall as the blond woman in red leather. She hardly
came up past the yellow crescent and star across her stomach.
"No, I don't suppose you do. What's this about?" Ann asked, losing the
timid innocent tone.
"Wizard Rahl wanted us to bring you in."
"Wizard Rahl?"
"Yes. Wizard Nathan Rahl."
Ann heard a gasp from the woman beside her. She thought the woman was
going to faint, and so took hold of her arm.
"Are you all right, my dear?"
She stared, wide-eyed, at the woman in red leather glowering down at
her. "Yes. I have to go. I'm late. I must go. Can I go?"
"Yes, you had better go," the tall blonde said.
The woman dipped a quick bow and muttered "Good night" before scurrying
off down the hall, looking over her shoulder only once.
Ann turned back to the scowl. "Well I'm glad you found me. Let's be off
to see Nathan. Excuse me ... Wizard Rahl."
"You won't be having an audience with Wizard Rahl."
"You mean, not tonight, I won't be having an ... audience with him
tonight."
Ann was being as polite as she could be, but she wanted to clobber that
troublesome man, or wring his neck, and the sooner the better.
"My name is Nyda," the woman said.
"Pleased to meet--"
"Do you know what I am?" She didn't wait for Ann to answer. "I am
Mord-Sith. I give you this one warning as a courtesy. It is the only
warning, or courtesy, you will receive, so listen closely. You came here
with hostile intent against Wizard Rahl. You are now my prisoner. Use of
your magic against a Mord-Sith will result in the capture of that magic by
me or one of my sister Mord-Sith and its use as a weapon against you. A
very, very unpleasant weapon."
"Well," Ann said, "in this place my magic is not very useful, I'm
afraid. Hardly worth a hoot, as a matter of fact. So, you see, I'm quite
harmless."
"I don't care how useful you find your magic. If you try to so much as
light a candle with it, your power will be mine."
"I see," Ann said.
"Don't believe me?" Nyda leaned down. "I encourage you to try to attack
me. I haven't captured a sorceress's magic for quite a while. Might be ...
fun."
"Thank you, but I'm a bit too tired out--from my travels and all--to be
attacking anyone just now. Maybe later?"
Nyda smiled. In that smile Ann could see why Mord-Sith were so feared.
"Fine. Later, then."
"So, what is it you intend to do with me in the meantime, Nyda? Put me
up in one of the palace's fine rooms?"
Nyda ignored the question and gestured with a tilt of her head. Two of
the men a short way back up the hall rushed forward. They towered over Ann
like two oak trees. Each grasped her under an arm.
"Let's go," Nyda said as she marched off down the hall ahead of them.
The men started out after her, pulling Ann along with them. Her feet
seemed to touch the floor only every third or fourth step. People in the
hall parted for the Mord-Sith. Passersby pressed themselves up against the
walls to the side, a goodly distance away. Some people disappeared into the
open shops, from where they peered out windows. Everyone stared at the squat
woman in the dark dress being hauled along by the two palace guards in
burnished leather and gleaming mail. Behind she could hear the jangle of
metal gear as the rest of the men followed along.
They turned into a small hall to the side going back between columns
holding a projecting balcony. One of the men rushed forward to unlock the
door. Before she knew it, they'd all swept through the little door like wine
through a funnel.
The corridor beyond was dark and cramped--nothing like the marble-lined
hallways most people saw. Not far down the hall, they turned down a
stairway. The oak treads creaked underfoot. Some of the men handed lanterns
forward so Nyda could light her way. The sound of all the footsteps echoed
back from the darkness below.
At the bottom of the steps, Nyda led them through a maze of dirty stone
passageways. The seldom-used halls smelled musty, and in places damp. When
they reached another stairwell, they continued down a square shaft with
landings at each turn, descending into the dark recesses of the People's
Palace. Ann wondered how many people in the past were taken by routes such
as this, never to be seen again. Richard's father, Darken Rahl, and his
father before him, Panis, were rather fond of torture. Life meant nothing to
men such as those.
Richard had changed all that.
But Richard wasn't at the palace, now. Nathan was.
Ann had known Nathan for a very long time--for nearly a thousand years.
For most of that time, as Prelate, she had kept him locked in his
apartments. Prophets could not be allowed to roam free. Now, though, this
one was free. And, worse, he had managed to establish his authority in the
palace--the ancestral home of the House of Rahl. He was an ancestor to
Richard. He was a Rahl. He was a wizard.
Ann's plan suddenly started to seem very foolish. Just catch the
prophet off guard, she'd thought. Catch him off guard and snap a collar back
around his neck. Surely, there would be an opening and he would be hers
again.
It had seemed to make sense at the time.
At the bottom of the long descent, Nyda swept to the right, following a
narrow walk with a stone wall soaring up on the right and an iron railing on
the left. Ann gazed off over the railing, but the lantern light showed
nothing but inky darkness below. She feared to think how far it might
drop--not that she had any ideas of a battle with her captors, but she was
beginning to worry that they just might heave her over the edge and be done
with her.
Nathan had sent them, though. Nathan, as irascible as he could
sometimes be, wouldn't order such a thing. Ann considered, then, the
centuries she had kept him locked away, considered the extreme measures it
had sometimes taken to keep that incorrigible man under control. Ann glanced
over the iron rail again, down into the darkness.
"Will Nathan be waiting for us?" she asked, trying to sound cheerful.
"I'd really like to talk to him. We have business we must discuss."
Nyda shot a dark look back over her shoulder. "Nathan has nothing to
talk to you about."
At an uncomfortably narrow passageway tunneling into the stone on the
right, Nyda led them into the darkness. The way the woman rushed lent a
frightening aspect to an already frightening journey.
Ann at last saw light up ahead. The narrow passageway emptied into a
small area where several halls converged. Ahead and to the right they all
funneled down steep stairs that twisted as they descended. As she was
prodded down the stairs, Ann gripped the iron rail, fearful of losing her
footing, although the big hand holding a fistful of her dress at her right
shoulder would probably preclude any chance of falling, to say nothing of
running off.
In the passageway at the bottom of the stairs, Nyda, Ann, and the
guards came to a halt under the low-beamed ceiling. Wavering light from
torches in floor stands gave the low area a surreal look. The place stank of
burning pitch, smoke, stale sweat, and urine. Ann doubted that any fresh air
ever penetrated this deep into the People's Palace.
She heard a hacking cough echoing from a dim corridor to the right. She
peered into that dark hall and saw doors to either side. In some of the
doors fingers gripped iron bars in small openings. Other than the coughing,
no sound came from the cells holding hopeless men.
A big man in uniform waited before an iron-bound door to the left. He
looked as if he might have been hewn from the same stone as the walls. Under
different circumstances, Ann might have thought that he was a pleasant
enough looking fellow.
"Nyda," the man said by way of greeting. When his eyes turned back up
after a polite bow of his head, he asked in his deep voice, "What have we
here?"
"A prisoner for you, Captain Lerner." Nyda seized the empty shoulder of
Ann's dress and hauled her forward as if showing off a pheasant after a
successful hunt. "A dangerous prisoner."
The captain's appraising gaze glided briefly over Ann before he
returned his attention to Nyda. "One of the secure chambers, then."
Nyda nodded her approval. "Wizard Rahl doesn't want her getting out. He
said she's no end of trouble."
At least half a dozen curt responses sprang to mind, but Ann held her
tongue.
"You had better come with us, then," Captain Lerner said, "and see to
her being locked in behind the shields."
Nyda tilted her head. Two of her men dashed forward and pulled torches
from stands. The captain finally found the right key from a dozen or so he
had on a ring. The lock sprang open with a strident clang that filled the
surrounding low corridors. It sounded to Ann like a bell being tolled for
the condemned.
With a grunt of effort, the captain tugged the heavy door, urging it to
slowly swing open. In the long hallway beyond, Ann saw but a couple of
candles bringing meager light to the small openings in doors to each side.
Men began hooting and howling, like animals, calling vile curses at who
might be entering their world. Arms reached out, clawing the air, hoping to
net a touch of a passing person.
The two men with torches swept into the hall right behind Nyda, the
firelight illuminating her in her red leather so all those faces pressed up
against the openings in their doors could see her. Her Agiel, hanging on a
fine chain at her wrist, spun up into her fist. She glared at the openings
in the doors to each side. Filthy arms drew back in. Voices fell silent. Ann
could hear men scurry to the far recesses of their cells.
Nyda, once certain there would be no misbehavior, started out again.
Big hands shoved Ann ahead. Behind, Captain Lerner followed with his keys.
Ann pulled the corner of her shawl over her mouth and nose, trying to block
the sickening stench.
The captain took a small lamp from a recess, lit it from a candle to
the side, and then stepped forward to unlock another door. In the low
passageway beyond, the doors were spaced closer together. A hand covered
with infected lesions hung limp out of one of the tiny openings to the side.
The hall beyond the next door was lower, and no wider than Ann's
shoulders. She tried to slow her racing heart as she followed the rough,
twisting passageway. Nyda and the men had to stoop, arms folded in, as they
made their way.
"Here," Captain Lerner said as he came to a halt.
He held up his lantern and peered into the small opening in the door.
On the second try, he found the right key and unlocked the door. He handed
his small lamp to Nyda and then used both hands to pull the lever. He
grunted and tugged with all his weight until the door grated partway open.
He squeezed around the door and disappeared inside.
Nyda handed in the lamp as she followed the captain in. Her arm,
sheathed in red leather, came back out to seize a fistful of Ann's dress and
drag her in after.
The captain was opening a second door on the other side of the tiny
room. Ann could sense that this was the room containing the shield. The
second door grated open. Beyond was a room carved from solid bedrock. The
only way out was through the door, and the outer room that contained the
shield, and then the second door.
The House of Rahl knew how to build a secure dungeon.
Nyda's hand gripped Ann's elbow, commanding her into the room beyond.
Even Ann, as short as she was, had to duck as she stepped over the high sill
to get through the doorway. The only furniture inside was a bench carved
from the stone of the far wall itself, providing both a seat and a bed off
the floor. A tin ewer full of water sat on one end of the bench. At the
opposite end was a single, folded, brown blanket. There was a chamber pot in
the corner. At least it was empty, if not clean.
Nyda set the lamp on the bench. "Nathan said to leave you this."
Obviously it was a luxury the other guests weren't afforded.
Nyda stepped one leg over the sill, but paused when Ann called her
name.
"Please give Nathan a message for me? Please? Tell him that I would
like to see him. Tell him that it's important."
Nyda smiled to herself. "He said you would say those words. Nathan is a
prophet, I guess he would know what you would say."
"And will you give him that message?"
Nyda's cold blue eyes looked to be weighing Ann's soul. "Nathan said to
tell you that he has a whole palace to run, and can't come running down to
see you every time you clamor for him."
Those were almost the exact words she had sent down to Nathan's
apartments countless times when a Sister had come to her with Nathan's
demands to see the Prelate. Tell Nathan that I have a whole palace to run
and I can't go running down there every time he bellows for me. If he has
had a prophecy, then write it down and I will look it over when I have the
time.
Until that moment, Ann had never truly realized how cruel her words had
been.
Nyda pulled the door shut behind her. Ann was alone in a prison she
knew she could not escape.
At least she was near the end of her life, and could not be held as a
prisoner for nearly her entire life, as she had held Nathan prisoner for
his.
Ann rushed to the little window. "Nyda!"
The Mord-Sith turned back from the second door, from beyond the shield
Ann could not cross. "Yes?"
"Tell Nathan ... tell Nathan that I'm sorry."
Nyda let out a brief laugh. "Oh, I think Nathan knows you're sorry."
Ann thrust her arm through the door, reaching toward the woman. "Nyda,
please. Tell him . .. tell Nathan that I love him."
Nyda stared at her a long moment before she pushed the outer door
closed.
Kahlan lifted her head. She gently laid a hand on Richard's chest as
she turned her ear toward the sound she'd heard off in the darkness. Beneath
her hand, Richard's chest rose and fell with his labored breathing, but,
even at that, she felt relief--he was still alive. As long as he was alive
she could fight to find a solution. She wouldn't give him up. They would get
to Nicci. Somehow, they would get to her.
A quick glance to the position of the quarter moon told her that she'd
been asleep less than an hour. Clouds, silvery in the moonlight, had
silently begun streaming in from the north. In the distant sky she saw, too,
the moonlit wings of the black-tipped races that always trailed them.
She hated those birds. The races had been following them ever since
Cara had touched the statue of Kahlan that Nicci said was a warning beacon.
Those dark wings were never far, like the shadow of death, always following,
always waiting.
Kahlan recalled all too well the sand in that hourglass statue
trickling out. Her time was running out. She had no actual indication of
what would happen when the time that sand had represented finally ran out--
but she could imagine well enough.
The place where they had set up camp, before a sharp rise of rock with
a stand of bristlecone pine and thorny brush to one side, wasn't as
protected or tenable a camp as any of them would have liked, but Cara had
confided that she was afraid that if they didn't stop, Richard wouldn't live
the night.
That whispered warning had set Kahlan's heart to pounding, brought cold
sweat to her brow, and swept her to the verge of panic.
She had known that the rough wagon ride, slow as it had been while they
made their way across open country in the dark, seemed to have made it more
difficult for Richard to breathe. Less than two hours after they had started
out, after Cara's warning, they'd been forced to stop. After they had
stopped, they were all relieved that Richard's breathing became more even,
and sounded a little less labored.
They needed to make it to roads so that traveling would be easier on
Richard, and so they could make better time. Maybe after he rested the
night, they could make swifter progress.
She had to fight constantly to tell herself that they would get him
there, that they had a chance, and that the journey's purpose wasn't merely
empty hope meant to forestall the truth.
The last time Kahlan had felt this helpless, felt this sense of
Richard's life slipping away, she'd at least had one solid chance available
to her to save him. She'd had no idea, at the time, that that one chance
taken would be the catalyst that would initiate a cascade of events that
would begin the disintegration of magic itself.
She was the one who had made the decision to take that chance, and she
was the one responsible for all that was now coming to pass. Had she known
what she now knew, she would have made the same decision--to save Richard's
life--but that made her no less liable for the consequences.
She was the Mother Confessor, and, as such, was responsible for
protecting the lives of those with magic, of creatures of magic. And,
instead, she might very well be the cause of their end.
Kahlan sprang to her feet, sword in hand, when she heard Cara's
whistled birdcall to alert them to her return. It was a birdcall Richard had
taught her.
Kahlan slid the shutter on the lantern open all the way to provide more
light. She saw Tom, hand resting on the silver-handled knife at his belt,
rise from the nearby rock where he'd been sitting as he watched over both
the camp and the man Kahlan had touched with her power. The man still lay on
the ground at Tom's feet where Kahlan had ordered him to stay.
"What is it?" Jennsen whispered as she appeared at Kahlan's side,
hastily rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"I'm not sure, yet. Cara signaled, so she must have someone with her."
Cara walked in out of the darkness, and, as Kahlan had suspected, she
was pushing a man ahead of her. Kahlan frowned, trying to recall where she'd
seen him before. She blinked, then, realizing it was the young man they had
come across a week or so back--Owen.
"I tried to get to you sooner!" Owen cried out when he saw Kahlan. "I
swear, I tried."
Holding him by the shoulder of his light coat, Cara marched the man
closer, then yanked him to a halt in front of Kahlan.
"What are you talking about?" Kahlan asked.
When Owen caught sight of Jennsen standing behind Kahlan's shoulder, he
paused with his mouth hanging open for an instant before he answered.
"I meant to get to you earlier, I swear," he said to Kahlan, sounding
on the verge of tears. "I went to your camp." He clutched his light coat
closed at his chest as he began to tremble. "I, I saw ... I saw all the ...
remains. Dear Creator, how could you be so brutal?"
Kahlan thought Owen looked like he might throw up. He covered his mouth
and closed his eyes as he shook.
"If you mean all those men," Kahlan said, "they tried to capture us, to
kill us. We didn't collect them from their rocking chairs beside their
hearths and bring them out into this wasteland where we slaughtered them.
They attacked us; we defended ourselves."
"But, dear Creator, how could you ..." Owen stood before her, unable to
control his shivering. He closed his eyes. "Nothing is real. Nothing is
real. Nothing is real." He repeated it over and over, as if it were an
incantation meant to protect him from evil.
Cara forcibly dragged Owen back a bit and sat him down on a shelf of
rock. Eyes closed meditatively, he mumbled "Nothing is real" to himself
continually while Cara took up a position to the left side of Kahlan.
"Tell us what you're doing here," Cara commanded in a low growl.
Although she didn't say it, the "or else" was clear enough.
"And be quick about it," Kahlan said. "We have enough trouble and we
don't need you added on top of it."
Owen opened his eyes. "I went to your camp to tell you about it, but...
all those bodies ..."
"We know about what happened back there. Now, tell us why you're here."
Kahlan was at the end of her patience. "I'm not going to ask you again."
"Lord Rahl," Owen wailed, tears bursting forth at last.
"Lord Rahl what," Kahlan demanded through gritted teeth.
"Lord Rahl has been poisoned," he blurted out as he wept.
Gooseflesh prickled up Kahlan's legs. "How can you possibly know such a
thing is true?"
Owen stood, clutching twisted wads of his coat at his chest. "I know,"
he cried, "because I'm the one who poisoned him."
Could it be? Could it be that it wasn't really the runaway power of the
gift killing Richard, but poison? Could it be that they had it all wrong?
Could it be that it was all caused by this man poisoning Richard?
Kahlan felt her sword's hilt slip from her fingers as she started for
the man.
He stood watching her come, like a fawn watching a mountain lion about
both to run for the hills, in the opposite direction of the Sister, and not
to look back. I didn't have to tell them twice. Then I sat down on a stool
outside the barn.
"Sure enough, in a while the Sister came back. She saw me sitting
there, hanging my head, pretending to be crying. She thought the other woman
was still inside, with the men. She said, 'It's time those foolish bastards
in there were done with you and your friend. His Excellency wants a report,
and he wants it now--he's ready to move.' "
Verna came up out of her chair. "You heard her say that?"
"Yes."
"Then what?" General Meiffert asked.
"Then the Sister made for the side door into the barn. When she stormed
past me, I rose up behind her and cut her throat with one of the men's
knives."
General Meiffert leaned toward Rikka. "You cut her throat? You didn't
use your Agiel?"
Rikka gave him a look that suggested she thought he hadn't been paying
attention. "Like the Prelate said, an Agiel doesn't work very well on those
the dream walker controls. So I used a knife. Dream walker or not, cutting
her throat worked just fine."
Rikka lifted the head before Verna again. One of the reports stuck to
the bottom of it as it swung by the hair. "I sliced the knife through her
throat and around her neck. She was thrashing about quite a bit, so I had a
good hold on her as she died. All of a sudden, there was an instant when the
whole world went black--and I mean black, black as the Keeper's heart. It
was as if the underworld had suddenly taken us all."
Verna looked away from the head of a Sister she had known for a very
long time and had always believed was devoted to the Creator, to the light
of life. She had been devoted, instead, to death.
"The Keeper came to claim one of his own," Verna explained in a quiet
voice.
"Well," Rikka said, rather sarcastically, Verna thought, "I didn't
think that when a Sister of the Light died such a thing happened. I told you
it was a Sister of the Dark."
Verna nodded. "So you did."
General Meiffert gave the Mord-Sith a hurried clap on the back of the
shoulder. "Thanks, Rikka. I'd better spread the word. If Jagang is starting
to move, it won't be many days before he's here. We need to be sure the
passes are ready when his force finally gets here."
"The passes will hold," Verna said. She let out a silent sigh. "At
least for a while."
The Order had to come across the mountains if they were to conquer
D'Hara. There were few ways across those formidable mountains.
Verna and the Sisters had shielded and sealed those passes as well as
it was possible to seal them. They had used magic to bring down walls of
rock in places, making the narrow roads impassable. In other places, they
had used their power to cleave away roads cut into the steep sides of
mountains, leaving no way through, except to clamber over rubble. To prevent
that, and in other places, the men had worked all winter constructing stone
walls across the passes. Atop those walls were fortifications from which
they could rain down death on the narrow passes below. Additionally, in
every one of those places, the Sisters had set snares of magic so deadly
that coming through would be a bloody ordeal that would only get worse, and
that was before they encountered the walls lined with defenders.
Jagang had Sisters of the Dark to try to undo the barriers of both
magic and stone, but Verna was more powerful, in the Additive anyway, than
any of them. Besides that, she had joined her power with other Sisters in
order to invest in those barriers magic that she knew would prove
formidable.
Still, Jagang would come. Nothing Verna, her Sisters, and the D'Haran
army could do would ultimately be able to withstand the numbers Jagang would
throw at them. If he had to command his men to march through passes filled a
hundred feet deep with their fallen comrades, he would not flinch from doing
so. Nor would it matter to him if the corpses were a thousand feet deep.
"I'll be back a little later, Verna," the general said. "We'll need to
get the officers and some of the Sisters together and make sure everything
is ready."
"Yes, of course," Verna said.
Both General Meiffert and Rikka started to leave.
"Rikka," Verna called. She gestured down at the desk. "Take the dear
departed Sister with you, would you please?"
Rikka sighed, which nearly spilled her bosom out of the dress. She made
a long-suffering face before snatching up the head and vanishing out of the
tent behind the general.
Verna sat down and put her head in her hands. It was going to start all
over again. It had been a long and peaceful, if bitterly cold, winter.
Jagang had made his winter encampment on the other side of the mountains,
far enough away that, with the snow and cold, it was difficult to launch
effective raids against his troops. Just as it had the summer before, the
summer Warren had died, now that the weather was favorable, the Order would
begin to move. It was starting all over again. The killing, the terror, the
fighting, running, hunger, exhaustion.
But what choice was there, other than to be killed. In many ways, life
had come to seem worse than death.
Verna abruptly remembered, then, about the journey book. She worked it
out of the pocket in her belt and pulled the lamp closer, needing the
comfort as well as the light. She wondered where Richard and Kahlan were, if
they were safe, and she thought, too, about Zedd and Adie all alone guarding
the Wizard's Keep. Unlike everyone else, at least Zedd and Adie were safe
and at peace where they were--for the time being, anyway. Sooner or later,
D'Hara would fall and then Jagang would return to Aydindril.
Verna tossed the small black book on the desk, smoothed her dress
beneath her legs, and scooted her chair closer. She ran her fingers over the
familiar leather cover on an object of magic that was over three thousand
years old. The journey books had been invested with magic by those
mysterious wizards who so long ago had built the Palace of the Prophets. A
journey book was twinned, and as such, they were priceless; what was written
in one appeared at the same time in its twin. In that way, the Sisters could
communicate over vast distances and know important information as it
happened, rather than weeks or even months later.
Ann, the real Prelate, had the twin to Verna's.
Verna, herself, had been sent by Ann on a journey of nearly twenty
years to find Richard. Ann had known all along where Richard had been. It
was for that reason that Verna could understand Kahlan's rage at how Ann had
seemed to twist her and Richard's life. But Verna had come to understand
that the Prelate had sent her on what was actually a mission of vital
importance, one that had brought change to the world, but also brought hope
for the future.
Verna opened the journey book, holding it a little sideways to see the
words in the light.
Verna, Ann wrote, / believe I have discovered where the prophet is
hiding.
Verna sat back in surprise. After the palace had been destroyed,
Nathan, the prophet, had escaped their control and had since been roaming
free, a profound danger.
For the last couple of years, the rest of the Sisters of the Light had
believed that the Prelate and the prophet were dead. Ann, when she'd left
the Palace of the Prophets with Nathan on an important mission, had feigned
their deaths and named Verna Prelate to succeed her. Very few people other
than Verna, Zedd, Richard, and Kahlan knew the truth. During that mission,
however, Nathan had managed to get his collar off and escape Ann's control.
There was no telling what catastrophe that man could cause.
Verna leaned over the journey book again.
/ should have Nathan within days, now. I can hardly believe that after
all this time, I nearly have my hands on that man. I will let you know soon.
How are you, Verna? How are you feeling? How are the Sisters and how go
matters with the army? Write when you can. I will be checking my journey
book nightly. I miss you terribly.
Verna sat back again. That was all there was. But it was enough. The
very notion of Ann finally capturing Nathan made Verna's head swim with
relief.
Even that momentous news, though, failed to do much to lift her mood.
Jagang was about to launch his attack on D'Hara and Ann was about to finally
have Nathan under control, but Richard was somewhere off to the south,
beyond their control. Ann had worked for five hundred years to shape events
so that Richard could lead them in the battle for the future of mankind, and
now, on the eve of what could very well prove to be that final battle, he
was not there with them.
Verna drew the stylus out of the journey book's spine and leaned over
to write Ann a report.
My dearest Ann, I'm afraid that things here are about to become very
unpleasant.
The siege of the passes into D'Hara is about to begin.
The sprawling corridors of the People's Palace, seat of power in
D'Hara, were filled with the whisper of footsteps on stone. Ann pushed
herself back a little on the white marble bench where she sat stuffed
between three women on one side and an older couple on the other, all
gossiping about what people were wearing as they strolled the grand halls,
or what other people did while they were here, or what they most wanted to
see. Ann supposed that such gossip was harmless enough and probably meant to
take people's minds off the worries of the war. Still, it was hard to
believe that at such a late hour people would rather be out gossiping than
in a warm bed asleep.
Ann kept her head down and pretended to be pawing through her travel
bag while at the same time keeping a wary eye on the soldiers passing not
too far away as they patrolled. She didn't know if her caution was
necessary, but she would rather not find out too late that it was.
"Come from far?" the closest woman beside her asked.
Ann looked up, realizing that the woman had spoken to her. "Well, yes,
I guess it has been a bit of a journey."
Ann put her nose back in her bag and rummaged in earnest, hoping to be
left alone.
The woman, middle-aged with her curls of brown hair just starting to
carry a bit of gray, smiled. "I'm not all that far from home, myself, but I
do so like to spend a night at the palace, now and then, just to lift my
spirits."
Ann glanced around at the polished marble floors, the glossy red stone
columns below arches, decorated with carved vines, that supported the upper
balconies. She gazed up at the skylights that allowed the light to flood in
the place during the day, and peered off at the grand statues that stood on
pedestals around a fountain with life-sized stone horses galloping forever
through a shimmering spray of water.
"Yes, I see what you mean," Ann murmured.
The place didn't lift her spirits. In fact, the place made her as
nervous as a cat in a doghouse with the door closed. She could feel that her
power was frighteningly diminished in this place.
The People's Palace was more than any mere palace. It was a city all
joined together and under countless roofs atop a huge plateau. Tens of
thousands of people lived in the magnificent structure, and thousands more
visited it daily. There were different levels to the palace itself, some
where people had shops and sold goods, others where officials worked, some
that were living quarters. Many sections were off limits to those who
visited.
Sprawled around the base of the plateau were informal markets where
people gathered to buy, sell, and trade goods. On the climb all the way up
through the interior of the plateau to reach the palace itself, Ann had
passed many permanent shops. The palace was a center of trade, drawing
people from all over D'Hara.
More than that, though, it was the ancestral home of the House of Rahl.
As such, it was grand for arcane reasons beyond the awareness or even
understanding of most of the people who called it home or visited it. The
People's Palace was a spell--not a place spelled, as had been the Palace of
the Prophets where Ann had spent most of her life. The place itself was the
spell.
The entire palace had been built to a careful and precise design: that
of a spell drawn on the face of the ground. The outer fortified walls
contained the actual spell form and the major congregations of rooms formed
significant hubs, while the halls and corridors themselves were the drawn
lines--the essence of the spell itself, the power.
Like a spell being drawn in the dirt with the point of a stick, the
halls would have had to have been built in the sequence required by the
specific magic the spell was intended to invoke. It would have been
enormously expensive to build it in that manner, ignoring the typical
requirements of construction and accepted methods of the trade of building,
but only by doing so would the spell work, and work it did.
The spell was specific. It was a place of safety for any Rahl. It was
meant to give a Rahl more power in the place, and to leach power away from
anyone else who entered. Ann had never been in a place where she felt such a
waning of her Han, the essence of life and the gift within. She doubted that
in this place her Han would for long be vital enough to light a candle.
Ann's jaw dropped in astonishment as another element of the spell
abruptly occurred to her. She looked out at the halls--part of the lines of
the spell--filled with people.
Spells drawn with blood were always more effective and powerful. But
when the blood soaked into the ground, decomposed, and dissipated, the power
of the spell would often fade as well. But this spell, the drawn lines of
the spell itself--the corridors--were filled with the vital living blood of
all the people moving through them. Ann was struck dumb with awe at such a
brilliant concept.
"So, you're renting a room, then."
Ann had forgotten the woman beside her, still staring at her, still
holding the smile on her painted lips. Ann forced herself to close her
mouth.
"Well. . ." Ann finally admitted, "I haven't actually made arrangements
yet as to where I will sleep."
The woman's smile persisted, but it looked as if it was taking more and
more effort all the time. "You can't curl up on a bench, you know. The
guards won't allow it. You have to rent a room, or be put out at night."
Ann understood, then, what the woman was driving at. To these people,
most dressed in their finest clothes for their visit to the palace, Ann must
look like a beggar in their midst. After all the gossip about what people
were wearing, this woman must have been disconcerted to find herself beside
Ann.
"I have the price of a room," Ann assured her. "I just haven't found
where they are, yet, that's all. After such a long journey, I meant to go
there right away and get myself cleaned up, but I just needed to rest my
weary feet for a bit, first. Could you tell me where to find the rooms to
rent?"
The smile looked a little easier. "I'm off to my own room and I could
take you. It isn't far."
"That would be kind of you," Ann said as she rose now that she saw the
guards moving off down the corridor.
The woman stood, bidding her two benchmates a good night.
If Ann was tired, it was only from being caught up in the afternoon
devotion to the Lord Rahl. A bell in an open square had tolled, and everyone
had moved to gather there and bow down. Ann had noticed then that no one
missed the devotion. Guards moved among the crowd watching people gather.
She felt like a mouse being watched by hawks so she joined with the other
people moving toward the square.
She had spent nearly two hours on her knees, on a hard clay tile floor,
bowed down with her forehead touching the ground like everyone else,
repeating the devotion in concert with all the other somber voices.
Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In
your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are
humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.
Twice a day, those in the palace were expected to go to the devotion.
Ann didn't know how people endured such torture.
Then she remembered the bond between the Lord Rahl and his people that
prevented the dream walker from entering their minds, and she knew how they
could endure it. She, herself, had briefly been a prisoner of Emperor
Jagang. He murdered a Sister right before her eyes, just to make a point.
In the face of brutality and torture, she guessed that she knew how
people endured a mere devotion.
For her, though, such a spoken devotion to the Lord Rahl, to Richard,
was hardly necessary. She had been devoted to him for nearly five hundred
years before he had even been born.
Prophecy said that Richard was their only chance to avoid catastrophe.
Ann peered carefully around the halls. Now she just needed the prophet
himself.
"This way," the woman said, tugging at Ann's sleeve.
The woman gestured for Ann to follow her down a hallway to the right.
Ann pulled her shawl forward, covering the pack she carried, and hugged her
travel bag closer as she followed along the wide corridor. She wondered how
many people sitting on benches and low marble walls around fountains were
gossiping about her.
The floor had a dizzying pattern of dark brown, rust, and pale
tan-colored stone running across the hall in zigzag lines meant to look
three-dimensional. Ann had seen such traditional patterns before, down in
the Old World, but none of this grand scale. It was a work of art, and it
was but the floor. Everything about the palace was exquisite.
Shops were set back under a mezzanine to each side. Some of them looked
to sell items travelers might want. There was a variety of small food and
drink stands, everything from hot meat pies, to sweets, to ale, to warm
milk. Some places sold nightclothes. Others sold hair ribbons. Even at this
late hour, some of the shops were still open and doing brisk business. In a
place such as this, there would be people who worked at night and would have
need of such shops. The places that offered to do up a woman's hair, or
paint her face, or promised to do wonders with her fingernails, were all
closed until morning. Ann doubted they could pull off wonders with her.
The woman cleared her throat as they strolled down the broad corridor,
gazing at the shops to each side. "And where have you traveled from?"
"Oh, far to the south. Very far." Ann took note of the woman's focused
attention as she leaned in a bit. "My sister lives here," Ann said, giving
the woman something more to chew on. "I'm here to visit my sister. She
advises Lord Rahl on important matters."
The woman's eyebrows lifted. "Really! An advisor to Lord Rahl himself.
What an honor for your family."
"Yes," Ann drawled. "We're all proud of her."
"What does she advise him on?"
"Advise him on? Oh, well, matters of war."
The woman's mouth fell open. "A woman? Advising Lord Rahl on warfare?"
"Oh yes," Ann insisted. She leaned over and whispered, "She's a
sorceress. Sees into the future, you know. Why, she wrote me a letter and
told me she saw me coming to the palace for a visit. Isn't that amazing?"
The woman frowned a bit. "Well, that does seem rather remarkable, since
here you are and all."
"Yes, and she told me that I'd meet a helpful woman."
The woman's smile returned, it again looked forced. "She sounds to be
quite talented."
"Oh, you have no idea," Ann insisted. "She is so specific in her
forecasts about the future."
"Really? Had she anything else to say about your visit, then? Anything
specific?"
"Oh yes indeed. Why, do you know that she told me I would meet a man
when I came here?"
The woman's gaze flicked around the halls. "There are a lot of men
here. That hardly seems very specific. Surely, she must have said more than
that... I mean, if she is so talented, and an advisor to Lord Rahl and all."
Ann put a finger to her lip, frowning in feigned effort at
recollection. "Why, yes, she did, now that you mention it. Let's see if I
can remember ..." Ann laid a hand on the woman's arm in a familiar manner.
"She tells me about my future all the time. My sister is always telling me
so many things about my future in her letters that I sometimes feel as if
I'm having trouble catching up with my own life! I sometimes have trouble
remembering it all."
"Oh do try," the woman said, eager for the gossip. "This is so
fascinating."
Ann returned the finger to her lower lip as she gazed at the ceiling,
pretending to be engaged in deep thought, and noticed for the first time
that the ceiling was painted like the sky, with clouds and all. The effect
was quite clever.
"Well," Ann finally said when she was sure she had the woman's full
attention, "my sister said that the man I would meet was old." She returned
the hand to the woman's arm. "But very distinguished. Not old and decrepit,
but tall--very tall--with a full head of white hair that comes all the way
down to his broad shoulders. She said that he would be clean-shaven, and
that he would be ruggedly handsome, with penetrating dark azure eyes."
"Dark azure eyes ... my, my," the woman tittered, "but he does sound
handsome."
"And she said that when he looks at a woman with those hawklike eyes of
his, their knees want to buckle."
"That is precise," the woman said, her face getting flushed. "Too bad
she didn't know this handsome fellow's name."
"Oh, but she did. What kind of advisor to the Lord Rahl would she be if
she wasn't talented enough to know such things."
"She told his name, too? She can really do such tellings of the
future?"
"Oh my yes," Ann assured her.
She strolled along for a time, watching people making their way up and
down the hall, stopping at some of the shops that were still open, or
sitting on benches, gossiping.
"And?" the woman asked. "What is the name your sister foretold? The
name of this tall distinguished gentleman."
Ann frowned up at the ceiling again. "It was N something. Nigel or
Norris, or something. No, wait--that wasn't it." Ann snapped her finger and
thumb. "The name she said was Nathan."
"Nathan," the woman repeated, looking almost as if she had been ready
to pluck the name off Ann's tongue if she didn't spit it out. "Nathan."
"Yes, that's it. Nathan. Do you know anyone here at the palace by that
name? Nathan? A tall fellow, older, with long white hair, broad shoulders,
azure eyes?"
The woman peered up at the ceiling in thought. This time it was Ann
leaning in, waiting for word, watching intently for any reaction.
A hand seized Ann's dress at her shoulder and brought her to an abrupt
halt. Ann and the woman turned.
Behind them stood a very tall woman, with a very long blond braid, with
very blue eyes, wearing a very dark scowl and an outfit of very red leather.
The woman beside Ann went as pale as vanilla pudding. Her mouth fell
open. Ann forced her own mouth to stay shut.
"We've been expecting you," the woman in red leather said.
Behind her, back up the hallway a short distance, spread out to block
the hall, stood a dozen perfectly huge men in perfect leather armor carrying
perfectly polished swords, knives, and lances.
"Why, I think you must have me mistaken for--"
"I don't make mistakes."
Ann wasn't nearly as tall as the blond woman in red leather. She hardly
came up past the yellow crescent and star across her stomach.
"No, I don't suppose you do. What's this about?" Ann asked, losing the
timid innocent tone.
"Wizard Rahl wanted us to bring you in."
"Wizard Rahl?"
"Yes. Wizard Nathan Rahl."
Ann heard a gasp from the woman beside her. She thought the woman was
going to faint, and so took hold of her arm.
"Are you all right, my dear?"
She stared, wide-eyed, at the woman in red leather glowering down at
her. "Yes. I have to go. I'm late. I must go. Can I go?"
"Yes, you had better go," the tall blonde said.
The woman dipped a quick bow and muttered "Good night" before scurrying
off down the hall, looking over her shoulder only once.
Ann turned back to the scowl. "Well I'm glad you found me. Let's be off
to see Nathan. Excuse me ... Wizard Rahl."
"You won't be having an audience with Wizard Rahl."
"You mean, not tonight, I won't be having an ... audience with him
tonight."
Ann was being as polite as she could be, but she wanted to clobber that
troublesome man, or wring his neck, and the sooner the better.
"My name is Nyda," the woman said.
"Pleased to meet--"
"Do you know what I am?" She didn't wait for Ann to answer. "I am
Mord-Sith. I give you this one warning as a courtesy. It is the only
warning, or courtesy, you will receive, so listen closely. You came here
with hostile intent against Wizard Rahl. You are now my prisoner. Use of
your magic against a Mord-Sith will result in the capture of that magic by
me or one of my sister Mord-Sith and its use as a weapon against you. A
very, very unpleasant weapon."
"Well," Ann said, "in this place my magic is not very useful, I'm
afraid. Hardly worth a hoot, as a matter of fact. So, you see, I'm quite
harmless."
"I don't care how useful you find your magic. If you try to so much as
light a candle with it, your power will be mine."
"I see," Ann said.
"Don't believe me?" Nyda leaned down. "I encourage you to try to attack
me. I haven't captured a sorceress's magic for quite a while. Might be ...
fun."
"Thank you, but I'm a bit too tired out--from my travels and all--to be
attacking anyone just now. Maybe later?"
Nyda smiled. In that smile Ann could see why Mord-Sith were so feared.
"Fine. Later, then."
"So, what is it you intend to do with me in the meantime, Nyda? Put me
up in one of the palace's fine rooms?"
Nyda ignored the question and gestured with a tilt of her head. Two of
the men a short way back up the hall rushed forward. They towered over Ann
like two oak trees. Each grasped her under an arm.
"Let's go," Nyda said as she marched off down the hall ahead of them.
The men started out after her, pulling Ann along with them. Her feet
seemed to touch the floor only every third or fourth step. People in the
hall parted for the Mord-Sith. Passersby pressed themselves up against the
walls to the side, a goodly distance away. Some people disappeared into the
open shops, from where they peered out windows. Everyone stared at the squat
woman in the dark dress being hauled along by the two palace guards in
burnished leather and gleaming mail. Behind she could hear the jangle of
metal gear as the rest of the men followed along.
They turned into a small hall to the side going back between columns
holding a projecting balcony. One of the men rushed forward to unlock the
door. Before she knew it, they'd all swept through the little door like wine
through a funnel.
The corridor beyond was dark and cramped--nothing like the marble-lined
hallways most people saw. Not far down the hall, they turned down a
stairway. The oak treads creaked underfoot. Some of the men handed lanterns
forward so Nyda could light her way. The sound of all the footsteps echoed
back from the darkness below.
At the bottom of the steps, Nyda led them through a maze of dirty stone
passageways. The seldom-used halls smelled musty, and in places damp. When
they reached another stairwell, they continued down a square shaft with
landings at each turn, descending into the dark recesses of the People's
Palace. Ann wondered how many people in the past were taken by routes such
as this, never to be seen again. Richard's father, Darken Rahl, and his
father before him, Panis, were rather fond of torture. Life meant nothing to
men such as those.
Richard had changed all that.
But Richard wasn't at the palace, now. Nathan was.
Ann had known Nathan for a very long time--for nearly a thousand years.
For most of that time, as Prelate, she had kept him locked in his
apartments. Prophets could not be allowed to roam free. Now, though, this
one was free. And, worse, he had managed to establish his authority in the
palace--the ancestral home of the House of Rahl. He was an ancestor to
Richard. He was a Rahl. He was a wizard.
Ann's plan suddenly started to seem very foolish. Just catch the
prophet off guard, she'd thought. Catch him off guard and snap a collar back
around his neck. Surely, there would be an opening and he would be hers
again.
It had seemed to make sense at the time.
At the bottom of the long descent, Nyda swept to the right, following a
narrow walk with a stone wall soaring up on the right and an iron railing on
the left. Ann gazed off over the railing, but the lantern light showed
nothing but inky darkness below. She feared to think how far it might
drop--not that she had any ideas of a battle with her captors, but she was
beginning to worry that they just might heave her over the edge and be done
with her.
Nathan had sent them, though. Nathan, as irascible as he could
sometimes be, wouldn't order such a thing. Ann considered, then, the
centuries she had kept him locked away, considered the extreme measures it
had sometimes taken to keep that incorrigible man under control. Ann glanced
over the iron rail again, down into the darkness.
"Will Nathan be waiting for us?" she asked, trying to sound cheerful.
"I'd really like to talk to him. We have business we must discuss."
Nyda shot a dark look back over her shoulder. "Nathan has nothing to
talk to you about."
At an uncomfortably narrow passageway tunneling into the stone on the
right, Nyda led them into the darkness. The way the woman rushed lent a
frightening aspect to an already frightening journey.
Ann at last saw light up ahead. The narrow passageway emptied into a
small area where several halls converged. Ahead and to the right they all
funneled down steep stairs that twisted as they descended. As she was
prodded down the stairs, Ann gripped the iron rail, fearful of losing her
footing, although the big hand holding a fistful of her dress at her right
shoulder would probably preclude any chance of falling, to say nothing of
running off.
In the passageway at the bottom of the stairs, Nyda, Ann, and the
guards came to a halt under the low-beamed ceiling. Wavering light from
torches in floor stands gave the low area a surreal look. The place stank of
burning pitch, smoke, stale sweat, and urine. Ann doubted that any fresh air
ever penetrated this deep into the People's Palace.
She heard a hacking cough echoing from a dim corridor to the right. She
peered into that dark hall and saw doors to either side. In some of the
doors fingers gripped iron bars in small openings. Other than the coughing,
no sound came from the cells holding hopeless men.
A big man in uniform waited before an iron-bound door to the left. He
looked as if he might have been hewn from the same stone as the walls. Under
different circumstances, Ann might have thought that he was a pleasant
enough looking fellow.
"Nyda," the man said by way of greeting. When his eyes turned back up
after a polite bow of his head, he asked in his deep voice, "What have we
here?"
"A prisoner for you, Captain Lerner." Nyda seized the empty shoulder of
Ann's dress and hauled her forward as if showing off a pheasant after a
successful hunt. "A dangerous prisoner."
The captain's appraising gaze glided briefly over Ann before he
returned his attention to Nyda. "One of the secure chambers, then."
Nyda nodded her approval. "Wizard Rahl doesn't want her getting out. He
said she's no end of trouble."
At least half a dozen curt responses sprang to mind, but Ann held her
tongue.
"You had better come with us, then," Captain Lerner said, "and see to
her being locked in behind the shields."
Nyda tilted her head. Two of her men dashed forward and pulled torches
from stands. The captain finally found the right key from a dozen or so he
had on a ring. The lock sprang open with a strident clang that filled the
surrounding low corridors. It sounded to Ann like a bell being tolled for
the condemned.
With a grunt of effort, the captain tugged the heavy door, urging it to
slowly swing open. In the long hallway beyond, Ann saw but a couple of
candles bringing meager light to the small openings in doors to each side.
Men began hooting and howling, like animals, calling vile curses at who
might be entering their world. Arms reached out, clawing the air, hoping to
net a touch of a passing person.
The two men with torches swept into the hall right behind Nyda, the
firelight illuminating her in her red leather so all those faces pressed up
against the openings in their doors could see her. Her Agiel, hanging on a
fine chain at her wrist, spun up into her fist. She glared at the openings
in the doors to each side. Filthy arms drew back in. Voices fell silent. Ann
could hear men scurry to the far recesses of their cells.
Nyda, once certain there would be no misbehavior, started out again.
Big hands shoved Ann ahead. Behind, Captain Lerner followed with his keys.
Ann pulled the corner of her shawl over her mouth and nose, trying to block
the sickening stench.
The captain took a small lamp from a recess, lit it from a candle to
the side, and then stepped forward to unlock another door. In the low
passageway beyond, the doors were spaced closer together. A hand covered
with infected lesions hung limp out of one of the tiny openings to the side.
The hall beyond the next door was lower, and no wider than Ann's
shoulders. She tried to slow her racing heart as she followed the rough,
twisting passageway. Nyda and the men had to stoop, arms folded in, as they
made their way.
"Here," Captain Lerner said as he came to a halt.
He held up his lantern and peered into the small opening in the door.
On the second try, he found the right key and unlocked the door. He handed
his small lamp to Nyda and then used both hands to pull the lever. He
grunted and tugged with all his weight until the door grated partway open.
He squeezed around the door and disappeared inside.
Nyda handed in the lamp as she followed the captain in. Her arm,
sheathed in red leather, came back out to seize a fistful of Ann's dress and
drag her in after.
The captain was opening a second door on the other side of the tiny
room. Ann could sense that this was the room containing the shield. The
second door grated open. Beyond was a room carved from solid bedrock. The
only way out was through the door, and the outer room that contained the
shield, and then the second door.
The House of Rahl knew how to build a secure dungeon.
Nyda's hand gripped Ann's elbow, commanding her into the room beyond.
Even Ann, as short as she was, had to duck as she stepped over the high sill
to get through the doorway. The only furniture inside was a bench carved
from the stone of the far wall itself, providing both a seat and a bed off
the floor. A tin ewer full of water sat on one end of the bench. At the
opposite end was a single, folded, brown blanket. There was a chamber pot in
the corner. At least it was empty, if not clean.
Nyda set the lamp on the bench. "Nathan said to leave you this."
Obviously it was a luxury the other guests weren't afforded.
Nyda stepped one leg over the sill, but paused when Ann called her
name.
"Please give Nathan a message for me? Please? Tell him that I would
like to see him. Tell him that it's important."
Nyda smiled to herself. "He said you would say those words. Nathan is a
prophet, I guess he would know what you would say."
"And will you give him that message?"
Nyda's cold blue eyes looked to be weighing Ann's soul. "Nathan said to
tell you that he has a whole palace to run, and can't come running down to
see you every time you clamor for him."
Those were almost the exact words she had sent down to Nathan's
apartments countless times when a Sister had come to her with Nathan's
demands to see the Prelate. Tell Nathan that I have a whole palace to run
and I can't go running down there every time he bellows for me. If he has
had a prophecy, then write it down and I will look it over when I have the
time.
Until that moment, Ann had never truly realized how cruel her words had
been.
Nyda pulled the door shut behind her. Ann was alone in a prison she
knew she could not escape.
At least she was near the end of her life, and could not be held as a
prisoner for nearly her entire life, as she had held Nathan prisoner for
his.
Ann rushed to the little window. "Nyda!"
The Mord-Sith turned back from the second door, from beyond the shield
Ann could not cross. "Yes?"
"Tell Nathan ... tell Nathan that I'm sorry."
Nyda let out a brief laugh. "Oh, I think Nathan knows you're sorry."
Ann thrust her arm through the door, reaching toward the woman. "Nyda,
please. Tell him . .. tell Nathan that I love him."
Nyda stared at her a long moment before she pushed the outer door
closed.
Kahlan lifted her head. She gently laid a hand on Richard's chest as
she turned her ear toward the sound she'd heard off in the darkness. Beneath
her hand, Richard's chest rose and fell with his labored breathing, but,
even at that, she felt relief--he was still alive. As long as he was alive
she could fight to find a solution. She wouldn't give him up. They would get
to Nicci. Somehow, they would get to her.
A quick glance to the position of the quarter moon told her that she'd
been asleep less than an hour. Clouds, silvery in the moonlight, had
silently begun streaming in from the north. In the distant sky she saw, too,
the moonlit wings of the black-tipped races that always trailed them.
She hated those birds. The races had been following them ever since
Cara had touched the statue of Kahlan that Nicci said was a warning beacon.
Those dark wings were never far, like the shadow of death, always following,
always waiting.
Kahlan recalled all too well the sand in that hourglass statue
trickling out. Her time was running out. She had no actual indication of
what would happen when the time that sand had represented finally ran out--
but she could imagine well enough.
The place where they had set up camp, before a sharp rise of rock with
a stand of bristlecone pine and thorny brush to one side, wasn't as
protected or tenable a camp as any of them would have liked, but Cara had
confided that she was afraid that if they didn't stop, Richard wouldn't live
the night.
That whispered warning had set Kahlan's heart to pounding, brought cold
sweat to her brow, and swept her to the verge of panic.
She had known that the rough wagon ride, slow as it had been while they
made their way across open country in the dark, seemed to have made it more
difficult for Richard to breathe. Less than two hours after they had started
out, after Cara's warning, they'd been forced to stop. After they had
stopped, they were all relieved that Richard's breathing became more even,
and sounded a little less labored.
They needed to make it to roads so that traveling would be easier on
Richard, and so they could make better time. Maybe after he rested the
night, they could make swifter progress.
She had to fight constantly to tell herself that they would get him
there, that they had a chance, and that the journey's purpose wasn't merely
empty hope meant to forestall the truth.
The last time Kahlan had felt this helpless, felt this sense of
Richard's life slipping away, she'd at least had one solid chance available
to her to save him. She'd had no idea, at the time, that that one chance
taken would be the catalyst that would initiate a cascade of events that
would begin the disintegration of magic itself.
She was the one who had made the decision to take that chance, and she
was the one responsible for all that was now coming to pass. Had she known
what she now knew, she would have made the same decision--to save Richard's
life--but that made her no less liable for the consequences.
She was the Mother Confessor, and, as such, was responsible for
protecting the lives of those with magic, of creatures of magic. And,
instead, she might very well be the cause of their end.
Kahlan sprang to her feet, sword in hand, when she heard Cara's
whistled birdcall to alert them to her return. It was a birdcall Richard had
taught her.
Kahlan slid the shutter on the lantern open all the way to provide more
light. She saw Tom, hand resting on the silver-handled knife at his belt,
rise from the nearby rock where he'd been sitting as he watched over both
the camp and the man Kahlan had touched with her power. The man still lay on
the ground at Tom's feet where Kahlan had ordered him to stay.
"What is it?" Jennsen whispered as she appeared at Kahlan's side,
hastily rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"I'm not sure, yet. Cara signaled, so she must have someone with her."
Cara walked in out of the darkness, and, as Kahlan had suspected, she
was pushing a man ahead of her. Kahlan frowned, trying to recall where she'd
seen him before. She blinked, then, realizing it was the young man they had
come across a week or so back--Owen.
"I tried to get to you sooner!" Owen cried out when he saw Kahlan. "I
swear, I tried."
Holding him by the shoulder of his light coat, Cara marched the man
closer, then yanked him to a halt in front of Kahlan.
"What are you talking about?" Kahlan asked.
When Owen caught sight of Jennsen standing behind Kahlan's shoulder, he
paused with his mouth hanging open for an instant before he answered.
"I meant to get to you earlier, I swear," he said to Kahlan, sounding
on the verge of tears. "I went to your camp." He clutched his light coat
closed at his chest as he began to tremble. "I, I saw ... I saw all the ...
remains. Dear Creator, how could you be so brutal?"
Kahlan thought Owen looked like he might throw up. He covered his mouth
and closed his eyes as he shook.
"If you mean all those men," Kahlan said, "they tried to capture us, to
kill us. We didn't collect them from their rocking chairs beside their
hearths and bring them out into this wasteland where we slaughtered them.
They attacked us; we defended ourselves."
"But, dear Creator, how could you ..." Owen stood before her, unable to
control his shivering. He closed his eyes. "Nothing is real. Nothing is
real. Nothing is real." He repeated it over and over, as if it were an
incantation meant to protect him from evil.
Cara forcibly dragged Owen back a bit and sat him down on a shelf of
rock. Eyes closed meditatively, he mumbled "Nothing is real" to himself
continually while Cara took up a position to the left side of Kahlan.
"Tell us what you're doing here," Cara commanded in a low growl.
Although she didn't say it, the "or else" was clear enough.
"And be quick about it," Kahlan said. "We have enough trouble and we
don't need you added on top of it."
Owen opened his eyes. "I went to your camp to tell you about it, but...
all those bodies ..."
"We know about what happened back there. Now, tell us why you're here."
Kahlan was at the end of her patience. "I'm not going to ask you again."
"Lord Rahl," Owen wailed, tears bursting forth at last.
"Lord Rahl what," Kahlan demanded through gritted teeth.
"Lord Rahl has been poisoned," he blurted out as he wept.
Gooseflesh prickled up Kahlan's legs. "How can you possibly know such a
thing is true?"
Owen stood, clutching twisted wads of his coat at his chest. "I know,"
he cried, "because I'm the one who poisoned him."
Could it be? Could it be that it wasn't really the runaway power of the
gift killing Richard, but poison? Could it be that they had it all wrong?
Could it be that it was all caused by this man poisoning Richard?
Kahlan felt her sword's hilt slip from her fingers as she started for
the man.
He stood watching her come, like a fawn watching a mountain lion about